


Three Legs

by UncleAxel



Category: The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27421621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UncleAxel/pseuds/UncleAxel
Summary: H G Wells is in trouble!  His publisher won't accept his latest epic fantasy novel(yes! you've guessed right which one!).In desperation he calls upon his old friend the Time Traveller, to see if he can help.The consequences are ... well, the word 'cataclysmic' doesn't seem adequate to describe what happens next (or should I say, 'previously'?)...Or on the other hand, you may see this as a piece of nonsense - a sort of joke, even.  Read it to find out!





	Three Legs

**Three Legs**

_Author’s note: Many many years ago I read in the_ New Scientist _details of a competition in which entrants were asked to account amusingly for the absence of any three-legged creatures in Nature. I do not know how that competition went, but years later here is an effort of mine touching on that very subject. Not surprisingly, I dreamt it up after watching the 2005 movie_ War of the Worlds _. I am of course exceedingly indebted to Mr. H. G. Wells, several of whose words I have ‘borrowed’ for the purpose of this narrative._

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was relaxing alone in his most comfortable armchair in the smoking-room, before a blazing fire. A decanter of fine old Madeira was at his elbow, he wore his comfortable old velvet jacket; his pipe at his mouth, the tobacco barely smouldering. His left leg was lazily slung over the arm of the chair, whilst his other two legs were crossed with both feet resting casually on a low footstool. He was deep in thought.

Only four days ago, he had recounted to some of his most trusted and intimate friends the strange and amazing story of his voyage on his Time Machine, into the distant Future. His encounter with the Eloi and terrifying battle with the Morlocks had left his guests—all except one, maybe—bemused and startled, but on the whole (he suspected) sceptical—such escapades do not settle readily on the mind of the well-to-do gentleman of the late nineteenth century. He was wondering just how convincing his fantastic tale had sounded...

His musings were disturbed by the muffled sound of hooves in the snow outside, followed a moment later by the ringing of the doorbell, and heard a brief conversation at the door. Then Mrs Watchett, brisk yet deferential, and neat as ever, knocked and entered the room. “Gentleman to see you, Sir: Mr Wells.” The Time Traveller was in a benign and benevolent mood, and he did not begrudge this visitor the interruption—certainly not when it was one of his best friends. So he nodded to Mrs. Watchett to admit him without ceremony, calling after her, as an afterthought, to bring up some more glasses and a fresh decanter. He could hear the visitor stamping the snow off his three boots on the mat, and a moment later Wells entered: he was a portly man with a small ginger moustache, and he carried a bulky briefcase.

The newcomer was one of the most frequent visitors to his house: indeed he had been one of those who welcomed him back from his traumatic and terrifying journey into the Future, only the last week. He greeted the Time Traveller warmly and apologised profusely for the intrusion.

“Don’t mention it, my dear Wells, don’t mention it,” replied the Time Traveller, as he handed him a glass of Madeira and offered him a cigar. “You are as ever the most welcome in my house. And I understand that you have recently completed your latest manuscript. Is it that about which you wish to talk to me?” As he said this, the Time Traveller looked more keenly into his friend’s face. “Good Heavens, man!” he exclaimed. “Today, you’ve changed. You look really and utterly depressed and demoralised—unlike last time you came, when you were mostly concerned about **my** well-being after that little ‘trip’ of mine. Now it seems the other way around. What have you ...?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that, my dear chap,” retorted Wells. “Just upset, that’s all. Just been to see Richardson my publisher—you know the man slightly don’t you? Seems he doesn’t care for my new manuscript—doesn’t want to take it.”

“Is that the story about the space-monsters that invade the Earth and lay waste to it? Not exactly credible, I do agree—although maybe I should reconsider after my meeting with the Morlocks—”

“Yes, that’s the one.” replied Wells. “The story about the Martian creatures. Of course it was intended as pure fantasy (somewhat as most readers will think your ‘adventure’ is—should I ever get around to writing your story). No, it’s not quite that. Richardson, bless him, thinks the story has plenty of excitement, and the plot is good—but he doesn’t like the monsters themselves. Doesn’t think they’re ‘monstrous’ enough, that’s what he says...”

“Have you got the manuscript here, Wells? I mean, mind if I...?”

“Yes I have, as it happens. I came straight from Richardson’s to your house, being on my way. Don’t suppose it will matter will it? Here, take a look.” And he passed over a bulky sheaf of papers.

The Time Traveller un-crossed his middle and right legs, crossed his middle and left legs, then settled back and flipped through the papers for a long time in silence. “Hmmm... exciting plot—lots of adventure, fighting, compelling stuff. So what’s Richardson got against the monsters? They seem scary enough to me—waving that heat-gun of theirs around and all.”

“You understand, of course, that the ‘monsters’ are really walking machines each piloted by a Martian. Because Mars’s gravity is so much less than Earth’s, they’d be crippled upon landing here, so I had to think up a plausible means of locomotion for them to employ—hence the three-legged machines. But Richardson says, my big mistake is in giving them **three** legs—so much like so many of our Earthly creatures including ourselves. He doesn’t think the Martians’ machines are _unusual_ enough. I mean—three-legged? He says, after all, all humans are three-legged. Except those poor souls being sent back from South Africa in bandages and on crutches, of course. And all other vertebrates that walk on their hind legs are similarly tripedal. It’s always been like that hasn’t it?”

“My dear chap, he has a point,” said the Time Traveller. “We all know that we’re evolved from five-limbed creatures—we just evolved to stand up on our hind legs, and started to use our forelegs as manipulative limbs, didn’t we? Haven’t you been reading your Darwin lately?”

“Darwin? Of course I’ve read everything that Mr. Darwin wrote,” retorted Wells, a bit huffily. “In fact, I should venture to suggest, I have read, and presume to know more about, Mr. Darwin’s writings than anyone else of our acquaintance. He even links back our evolution from Palaeozoic times. No need to patronise me as if I were a schoolboy, old man.”

The Time Traveller was taken aback. “I am ever so sorry, Wells. Of course, I acknowledge your immense knowledge of these matters. It’s just that—well—I find myself in agreement with Richardson, somewhat. I mean—three-legged invaders from a distant planet! Fighting a battle with ordinary, tripedal human soldiers in England. What’s so new and imaginative about that? Don’t the readers want a being that looks nothing like any Earth creature? Isn’t that what will really set the imagination racing? Why not give your monsters only two legs?”

“Two legs? That’s ridiculous! How on earth would any such creature be able to stay upright, if it had only two legs? With every step it would overbalance. The whole idea is preposterous. Might as well give them only one leg each.”

“Well, your whole idea of space monsters is preposterous too, Wells,” retorted the Time Traveller. “I do really urge you to look again at your manuscript: turn your machines into two-legged constructions.”

“Impossible!” cried Wells. “Impossible! I have already completed the manuscript. With considerable effort, using one of those new-fangled ‘Remington Type-Writers’, as you can see. I need to get it published as soon as possible; I cannot afford the time to re-write it. I am short of funds, as you are well aware. No—if only the human race had not evolved as three-legged—if only...— **By Jove**!”

After this outburst, Wells was silent, lost in a deep reverie for quite a long time. The Time Traveller watched him anxiously for a while.

“Might I enquire, yet again, what is the matter, my good chap?”

“Oh—” said Wells, suddenly snapping out of his reverie. “Nothing—er—. Now: about your Time Machine: is it in working order?”

“Certainly it is in working order. But you are perfectly well aware, Wells, that everyone else was supposed to believe it to be only an imaginary device, invented to enable you to create one of your wildly imaginative, and, if I may be so bold, sensational, narratives. No-one, except you and I, was supposed to believe that the machine actually works—”

“Aside from that, how far back in time do you estimate it will go?”

“Oh—er—well I did plan for it to have an extremely long range. I should guess two—three hundred million years, maybe.”

“Hmmm... Permian. Carboniferous at a pinch. At least, that is the time-scale according to my conjectures, based on Mr William Smith’s excellent notes on stratigraphy, coupled with Mr Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution. It will have to suffice. May I borrow the Time Machine, please?”

“Borrow it!” cried the Time Traveller, utterly aghast at the thought of losing his most precious possession. “But—you are never serious! Only I know how to operate it. Surely you don’t think—”

“Oh, I know how you work the thing. Didn’t you explain it all, in meticulous detail, in the account you gave us all last Thursday? Anyway, I only want to borrow it for a moment. I shall be back in no time.”

“No time for me perhaps, but how long in _your_ time? Are you proposing to drag this thing for weeks across muddy swamps, hostile deserts? Bombarded with rocks by prehistoric cavemen perhaps?”

“All right, maybe I shall spend a little time where I’m going. But I promise, I shall take good care of the Machine. You will hardly notice its absence. So will you...?”

The Time Traveller meditated for a long time. The whole prospect terrified him, but then Wells was one of his best friends, and entirely trustworthy. Reluctantly, he nodded assent. Wells at once sprang to his feet with alacrity.

“Now, if you will excuse my rudeness, my dear chap, I need to go out and fetch some items. I shall not be gone more than two hours. Afterwards, if you will be so kind as to show me once more exactly how to operate the Time Machine. I shall be ready to embark on my journey into Time.”

And with that, he marched determinedly out of the house, without waiting for the Time Traveller to summon Mrs. Watchett. The Time Traveller could hear him hailing a hansom-cab outside, and a moment later the muffled sound of the horse’s five hooves as the cab hurried away down the road.

Within the promised two hours, Wells was back. He had in his arms a number of odd-looking packages.

“What do you have there?” asked the Time Traveller.

“Oh, some items I just collected from the Institute of Biology. Here, you see, a box of surgical instruments. A small microscope. Some Petri dishes. A couple of hypodermic syringes. And this...” he showed the Time traveller a sealed bottle with a red warning label on it “.. a special preparation of radium. You know, the substance—a type of metal, to be exact—that gives off those exotic rays which that young man and woman in Paris are so excited about...”

“Good Heavens, man! What do you propose to do with all those things?”

“I shall explain later. Now, if you would be so kind...” and he stuffed all his packages in a small knapsack, walked across to the Time Machine and gingerly mounted it and sat astride the saddle, painstakingly manoeuvring his middle leg into the recess provided for it. The Time Traveller quickly explained to him the function of each lever and stud, and Wells, waving a brief good-bye, thrust a lever and instantly vanished from the room.

For a second, the Time Traveller stood staring at the spot where his beloved Time Machine had once stood. He was violently interrupted in his thoughts by a searing pain that suddenly gripped his body, seeming to envelop his hips and pelvis. After a second or two of agony, the pain subsided as suddenly as it had come. The Time Traveller had almost been thrown off his feet by the seizure, but he recovered himself, staggering, and looked down at his feet in some alarm. Nothing seemed amiss, although both his legs were trembling violently and he found it difficult to stand. He stumbled his way back to his armchair, fell back into it with some relief, and mused for a moment about the oddity of the extra footstool placed in front of it.

But even as he stared the two footstools seemed to merge into one, and he instantly forgot that there had ever even been two footstools there. He had a vague sense of some incredible story which was rapidly passing from his memory—a strange dream perhaps? Something about three-legged men?

Ten seconds later the Time Machine was back in the corner of the room, with Wells astride it, dirty and smeared with green slime, his clothes torn, and seemingly a little greyer, but grinning broadly. He leapt from it and shook the Time Traveller’s hand vigorously.

“All done, my dear chap!” he yelled gleefully.

“Wells, what on earth have you done? I had the most extraordinary sensations while you were away. Almost like an amazing dream—as if the whole universe changed at that instant. _Have you been tampering with the course of history_? You know that mustn’t happen under any circumstances.. Who knows what the consequences might be...?”

“Oh, a bit of this and that,” replied Wells, nonchalantly. “A bit of scalpel work here, fiddling under the microscope there, irradiating somewhere else, and all that. All my biology studies coming back to me, very useful. Everything went excellently, I achieved exactly what I set out to do, and it should all work out perfectly. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take that manuscript back to Richardson. And I’m sure he’ll be astounded at it, I guarantee you he’ll agree to publish it on the spot... And a century hence—or perhaps a little over a century—the moving pictures...!” Wells was shouting, now.

“Those offerings of Monsieur Lumière and his brother? I have seen some of their efforts. Difficult to watch, flickering and indistinct. A passing fashion, a plaything, I judge. I can’t really see what draws people to them...”

“Much, much greater than M. Lumière, I guarantee you!” howled Wells. “Vast moving images coming out at you from the screen. A vast screen! Bigger than the wall of this room! All in full colour! And the sounds!” And, still raving, Wells rushed excitedly from the room.

After Wells had left, the Time Traveller stood for a long time in thought. To reassure himself, he felt both his legs carefully. There was no trace of any pain now, and no sign of anything amiss. Already, the memory of those wild dreams that he thought he had just experienced, was fading, as do all dreams. He vaguely tried to remember how the conversation with Wells had gone, upon his first appearance in the room earlier that day, but he could not recollect what they had said.

The Time Traveller walked over to the Time Machine. It appeared to be undamaged, although it was exceedingly dirty with fern fronds and fragments of horsetails entangled in the mechanism. He examined it for a good long while. Something was puzzling him about it. Abruptly, he turned and strode out of the room, and ran down to his workshop. A moment later, he was back, encumbered by an armful of blueprints. His expression became even more perplexed.

He was convinced that he had noticed a recess which he had made in the exact centre of the machine, just in front of the saddle. Exactly the right length and width to admit a third human leg. It had corresponded exactly with what was shown on his drawings. But _why had he placed it there_? In some agitation, he rifled through and examined his drawings once more.

Yes, the recess was shown there, but even as he looked at the paper, the ink seemed to flow: he blinked, and when he looked again, there was no indication of a recess at all. He turned back to the Time Machine and examined it more closely. No sign of any recess.

“I must have been dreaming,” he mused. “Dreaming about a Time Machine designed to be ridden by a being with three legs? No, wait: what **exactly** was I dreaming?”

Was he dreaming?

\------------------------------


End file.
